Ok, first off, I'm not trying to make this a Pre-bashing thread. Just discussing the phone. I'm not an Apple ****** or a Google employee. I am a Pre owner, and am just discussing my phone.

As a concerned Pre owner, I am seeing two MAJOR problems that we as a WebOS community are facing.

1. Lack of Pre-EXCLUSIVE features
2. Lack of Power-user base

As far as the first issue, I think many of us Pre owners are too quick to jump on the 'The Pre's UI is awesome' bandwagon. While that is true (at least for me), I think these days, what people really get hooked on is new features. While some might call these things flashy and useless, it's what sells phones, draws developers, and increased customer bases. I mean, hello, how much traction did Android 2.0 gain from Google Maps when the Pre has technically had a similar (although, admittedly inferior) feature since Day 1?

So, once again, I ask, what does one get on the Pre that another phone can't do? The multitasking UI is indeed spectacular, but WinMo and Android do multitasking equally well-- just not in such a pretty (and one-hand friendly) way.

The new 3D gaming is amazing, but has already been shown on Android and iPhone OS.

I thought we were getting a unique feature in Flash, but Android looks to be getting that very soon as well (though I'm sure after the Pre by at least a few weeks).

I think the community needs to think long and hard about what can be brought to the table that is unique, attention grabbing, and different.

As far as the second issue, I feel the general bad word-of-mouth surrounding the Pre is intensely damaging. The reason I pinpointed for this is a lack of power-users that migrate TO the device. From what I've seen (and this is not conclusive by any means), a majority of the phone's users are individuals migrating from feature/messaging/basic phones to their first smartphone OR people who are switching from MUCH older models (the newest being the Centro, dating back to the old old Treos). I have yet to see/meet/web-encounter a person who has come from an equatable modern smartphone platform (BB, iPhone, Android), especially a flagship device for those platoforms (Bold 9700, 3GS, Droid, respectively), and feels satisfied with the phone's speed, performance, and usability. We need to figure out why this is and figure out a way to fix it.

Because when the 'power-users' come, that's when a device gains traction in the mainstream. Both the iPhone and BB systems have major lacking features/flaws, but have become more and more widespread, whereas in it's 8 months of existence, I feel the Pre has moved backwards in gaining market share (exaggeration, I know, but bear with me).

Either way, I'm just looking for thoughts on these topics, not necessarily slams of the Pre or slams of me for being a hired stooge by Apple/BB sent to poison the minds of naive WebOS users.

You're right. When I said WinMo and Android multitasked 'as well' as WebOS, I meant that they also had COMPLETE multitasking, not incomplete partial multitasking like BB and iPhone.

As far as the list, the only things you listed that don't apply to other platforms are OS features (cards, wave launcher, etc). The wireless charging is techinically available via third-party hardware on other phones (powermat), but since you technically have to shell out additional money for both, I think it's the same-ish.

What's the features? WebOS. The way the whole system operates is simple and elegant in the way it handles your info with synergy, how you work with apps with the cards layout, how the system can have apps that share database (ie: flixster add to calendar), the ability to interact with notifications (ie: change the music within any app) and the open app distribution. Don't have to be locked down to your device. You can surf online, find what you want, download and receive a text to download the app OTA. That to me is the feature for the Palm devices.

I think a previous poster summed it up, elegance and usability. It does no good to have technical advances without ease of use and a positive user experience and webOS does both very well. With additinal tweaking and ironing out some minor issues I believe webOS will be the a major player in the mobile OS arena.

what does iPhone have that no other devices have?
what does BBhave that no other devices have?
what does androidhave that no other devices have?
what does wm have that no other devices have?

I think 'Desktop level multi-tasking is subjective. People prefer different things. Smart notifications are to be had in Android as well with the pull-down shade. Soem argue it's even better since it doesn't obstruct your screen view if 2/3 notifications come in at once. The BB desktop is as clean as WebOS. Plain screen with 5 icons at the bottom. Android can be customized to look the same. I guess the Wave launcher is exclusive, but that's really just a tweak, not a feature per se. GESTURES, on the other hand, are exclusive, and AMAZING, but not quite fully implemented enough or publicized enough to get the due they deserve.

As far as exclusives on other platforms, Apple has it's App store. People won't buy a phone for the potential it may have in a few years. Right now Apple's app store is second to none, obviously. BB has BB Enterprise server, plus additional email/security features that business users 'need'.

I guess Android and WinMo don't really have that much going for them additionally, but they're not really the biggest market share either. The above two are.

And I agree that WebOS works best for ME in it's UI. That's why I use it. However, there's nothing about it that would scream to a new user. In the crowded cell phone landscape, a phone HAS to have new exciting flashy different features if it wants to get noticed. I think Palm kind of has that with the cards UI, but like I said, multi-tasking is not exclusive.

As far as minor UI things like the way apps connect with each other, that's lovely (and one of my favorite things about the platform), but it's not really enough to SELL a phone. Phones sell because of the flashy gadgety features. I mean, Android has both Synergy and non-obtrusive notification systems that are different but equal functionality-wise (dependent on personal preference, of course).

When looking at the CES reports from 2009, I found all the tech reports that were looking forward to all the cool new WebOS features. Synergy. Multi-tasking. Pinch and Zoom. It seems like a lot of platforms have caught up now, making these features pretty standard across the board now. If a non-techy person was out looking for a phone, it would be difficult to find a feature that WebOS does SO much better or even possesses that another platform doesn't have. I think that's what worries me most about WebOS' future.

I don't think its fair to mention a feature and say, well android has this or iphone has that. There is no superphone competitor that combines android and iphone.

Android may have a lot of things, but an unfriendly UI, lack of multitouch, and a confusing mess surrounding OS versions & manufacturers means it doesn't matter much. Google's main purpose is not being locked out in the mobile scene for search and ads.

Iphone may have a lot of things, but its a fisher price tap tap, open, close, tap, tap system. Apple wants to lock you up if you jailbreak. Notifications make you want to pull your hair out. And its not a great PC experience using itunes. Apple hasn't pumped out an useful update this year. Still on 3.1 which didn't include anything notable. Apple has this way of making you feel like you're nothing more than a revenue stream to them.

Palm hits the right notes. Can boast visual multitasking, will work with homebrew, notificaitons, synergy and integrated chat, email, calendars, contacts. Quick OTA ability to push updates. Just has questionable hardware. And questionable marketing. It's up to Palm to push its unique features.

When pre came out, it gambled on having new features at the sacrifice of standard ones. Palm is finally filling in the holes in the standard features and it's competitors have emulated but not duplicated the new features pre introduced. Universal search on the iphone does not go to the web and the one on android doesn't go to maps, twitter or wiki but they do a deeper search of on-device data. Synergy on android is really just google services and facebook i believe. Webos notifications allow you to interact with them like a small widget.

If you want one thing that pre is best at. It's the best OS. Fast navigation, elegant, intuitive features and easy to use.

Btw, the flash on google nexus one video says it's still in the early stages. I think it will be months before you get flash on android. Also, does android do 3d games as well as pre/iphone?

So many of the "features" are toys to me. I am a mature pre user (by that I mean that I am older than most of you). I'm not sure that I will find much use for features such as video recording. I don't even care that much about multi-tasking (although it has come in handy a few times for me). I don't play games that much, so the CES announcements didn't mean that much to me. Don't get me wrong, I am happy that all these features are here or will be added because I want the Pre user base to grow. The more users the more apps that might be useful to me. (I'm still looking for a genealogy app.)

What continues to delight me is the Pre UI and the synergy. It keeps me organized without much effort and I have fun using it. That's enough.

Please tell me about the Palm product that had these features before the iPhone. Tell me about any phone that sported these features before the iPhone. The fact is, the Pre is nothing more than Palm's version of the iPhone with a few tweaks and improvements here and there. Yeah, Ruby never used an iPhone, does not pay attention to Apple, and drew none of these ideas from the competition. How gullible can some people be?

I personally think that the smartphone market is at a peak right now. You ask what features the Pre has over the competition, but really when you look at the smartphone market overall, no one smartphone has a leg up over any other anymore, with two exceptions. The iPhone has the app catalog, and the Pre has WebOS. As many have said before, WebOS is the Pre's greatest feature. Overall, it is waaaay beyond the competition. Android is the closest, but the huge variation between hardware, OS versions, carriers, etc. makes it much less appealing IMO.

Right now I do not see where we are going to see any huge breakthroughs in smartphones for the near term. Why? We have reached a breaking point as far as what the hardware can do. I personally feel in the future that smartphones will become truly portable computers, replacing most of what we currently do with laptops or netbooks. I envision a point when they will even take the place of our desktop computers, as you will just drop your smartphone in a dock to have a full keyboard, monitor, and mouse. But one thing is holding smartphones back, and that is battery technology. The tech exists today for us to be running smartphones with 2 ghz processors, tons of storage, and several gigs of system memory. But the tech does not exist to supply such a phone with battery life. A phone with that hardware would suck a current battery dry in minutes. So until there is a breakthrough in battery tech or a shift in our current power supply dynamic (wireless charging anyone?) the features on smartphones will be evolutionary, not revolutionary.

That said, now that the Pre offers 3D gaming, native applications, Flash (soon), video recording, and all the other goodies recently added, there is not a compelling reason for someone not to come over to Palm. Before, those arguements existed, but now, not so much. I still am miffed that there is no native Audible app, but I think that is coming soon...as well as a lot of the apps from the iPhone and Android catalogs. So the only thing that really matters anymore is user experience, and this is where the Pre wins hands down.

I didn't have a chance to read through all the posts, BUT --
I think what the Pre has, that differentiates it from everything else out there, is not even on the phone.
It's the COMMUNITY of people that have been able to make this phone, their own by way of Palm giving the tweakers, patchers and homebrewers a knowing 'wink and a nod'.
Yes, Palm is allowing it for their own benefit too; being that we've, in actuality, been beta testers whether we liked it or not. But I think this community is what really sets the Pre apart from it's competitors.
Not the phone itself.

Please tell me about the Palm product that had these features before the iPhone. Tell me about any phone that sported these features before the iPhone. The fact is, the Pre is nothing more than Palm's version of the iPhone with a few tweaks and improvements here and there. Yeah, Ruby never used an iPhone, does not pay attention to Apple, and drew none of these ideas from the competition. How gullible can some people be?[/QUOTE]

..............
The reason that the Pre is not just Palms version of the Iphone, is because all of those features are not the "hey, look at me" features that they were, and still are one the Iphone, its the basis of using the phone.
The pre is diffrent than the iphone in the fact that when creating the UI, the developers put in things like synergy and universal search, and the great multi tasking.
The card view you refer to on the Iphone is a completely different than the multitasking cards on the Pre.

Really? Then no phone can ever have a unique feature longer than the time it takes someone to steel it. That is a bit disingenuous. The iPhone brought all these things to market and made them must have features. They were not present in phones before the iPhone. Now, a phone can't ship without them. Tell me how the Pre changed the market. The original question is still valid. What did the Pre bring to the smartphone table that wasn't already there?

And the card view is not completely different from Safari. It is nothing more than an augmentation of the feature. Without Safari, there would be no card view for the Pre. I almost lost my lunch when Palm trotted out the video editing feature. How long will it take for people to forget where that really came from?

We bought my son a Droid Eris last night. I really like the features of that phone, but WebOS still has it on multitasking. Other than the nice notification system, using that thing is just like using an iPhone - you do one thing at a time, and if you want to get back to something else you're working on it's a kludge.

Really? Then no phone can ever have a unique feature longer than the time it takes someone to steel it. That is a bit disingenuous. The iPhone brought all these things to market and made them must have features. They were not present in phones before the iPhone. Now, a phone can't ship without them. Tell me how the Pre changed the market. The original question is still valid. What did the Pre bring to the smartphone table that wasn't already there?

And the card view is not completely different from Safari. It is nothing more than an augmentation of the feature. Without Safari, there would be no card view for the Pre. I almost lost my lunch when Palm trotted out the video editing feature. How long will it take for people to forget where that really came from?

Are you actually physically drinking the koolaid as you're writing these? That stuff is strong.